Friday, April 29, 2011

Royal Weddings don't come along often....when I was 17, Prince Charles and Diana married and I spent the night with my six best friends ~ we woke up at 4:00 AM in the morning and watched the royal wedding in awe. It is a vivid memory that I will never forget! So when the wedding of Kate and Prince William coincided with our Spring Break, I suggested that we have a "Royal Breakfast", invite friends over and celebrate the festivities. Well, in usual fashion, my girls expanded on my idea and the "Royal Breakfast" was a "Royal Event" that surpassed even my expectations!

The Royal Tea Set, given to the girls by Mimi and Charlie when they were young,

was washed and dried until it sparkled!

The Royal Rehearsal Party began...

and they danced...

and danced....

and danced until....

they could dance no more!

The Royal Umbrella was selected in case of rain!

The Royal "waker upper" was selected and given the dubious task of

awakening 12 sleeping beauties at 4:00 AM in the morning!

A Royal "fruit tart" was prepared for the "Royal Breakfast".

Only the best for this event ~ made from scratch by

none other than Sara!

The Royal Rehersal Party continued into the wee hours of the night

with not only dancing, but Royal games and whatnot!The older girls managed

to finally fall asleep around 1:00 AM;

while the younger group of Ellen's friends continued to party (ahem) until 3:00 AM

despite Mama's many encouragements to GO TO SLEEP!

And ~ way to soon ~ 4:00 AM arrived!

Living up to our "Royal Expectations", the "Royal Waker Upper" trekked through the house

tooting her own horn!

Above and beyond the call of duty, she even succeeded in waking the young "party goers" who partied until 3:00 AM and awoke begrudgingly with only one hour of sleep!

We selected our "Royal Waker Upper" wisely!

The Royal Attire for the wedding was donned.

Royal Breakfast was prepared....

On the Royal Menu....English muffins topped with bacon and eggs, crumpets (we aren't really sure what those are so we used Pepperidge Farm cookies!), Celestial Seasoning Herbal tea and English tea (served with LOTS of sugar cubes)!

Royal Scones

The Royal Wedding Watchers started to appear...they not only

donned Royal Wedding Attire, but also Royal English Accents!

Royal Phrases were created like "You Crumpet Brain", the smallest tea-cup was named

"The little Crumpet that could"....jokes were flying and laughter was contagious.

The Royal Procession began and was avidly watched!

Breakfast was served...

and enjoyed by all!

Finally, after much tooting of the horn and gentle encouragement,

the party girls rolled out of bed and arrived!

Tea, crumpets, scones and English muffins were devoured

while the wedding proceeded.

Royal Conversation was lively with English accents ~ commenting on all the crazy hats,

how Prince William looked bald, How Prince Harry looked like Harry Potter and that

makes him even more attractive (and he is available), how beautiful the dress was, what they wanted their wedding dresses to look like, chatter, chatter, chatter!

Laura had the fill "The little Crumpet that could" many times to get a decent sip of tea!

AND FINALLY ~ the big moment!

The Royal Wedding Vows were spoken!

Secrets were shared about how the elaborate "Royal Attire" was created!

You would never have guessed!

And, when appetites were satisfied and the bride and groom retired into Buckingham Palace ~

The "Royal Wedding Watchers" slipped out of their "Royal Attire" back into PJs and comfortable beds, sofas, sleeping bags, floor, sheepskin rug (there are twelve girls here after all!) and fell fast asleep...leaving me with LOTS of ROYAL DISHES!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Warning: This post is not for the faint of heart ~ If you are squeamish stop reading now!

Oh...the adventures in my life! If only I had started a blog years ago - I am so glad I now have a place to document all the fun things that happen in this crazy world of mine. Half of them never make it to the blog as I would never have time to even have an adventure because I would be so busy writing! You know how they say that pets begin to resemble their owners? I am about to relate a story that will have you humming the "twilight zone" theme! It all started on Sunday when Elizabeth gave Maisy a bath to clean her up from our fun weekend in the country (see previous post). She noticed several broken toe-nails and called me to come check it out. These were not just "broken toe-nails". They were broken down where the claw come out of the pad and were hanging at very awkward looking angles. There was definitely something very wrong. She has also been losing hair, but I had chalked that up to post pregnancy hormones. Now, with this on top of the hair loss, I knew she had to go to the vet. To add to the agenda, Elizabeth and I had already planned to fly out to Atlanta on Tuesday morning for just a day trip - not a fun one but a consultation with a group of dentist that are world renowned in restorative dentistry. (Implants and all that jazz). Elizabeth has a tooth that had internal root resorption when she was 13 and we have been running from one dentist to another with no success in having the "fake" tooth look "real". It is passable, but obvious, that something is not quite right with that beautiful smile of hers. Since it is right next to her two front teeth on the top of her mouth, I resolved that we would go to the best and see if they could fix the problem. So that left us with only Monday afternoon to run Maisy to the vet....and we did. The vet checked her over and said in thirty years of practicing, he had never seen three broken (at the pad) toenails at one time on a dog. He had seen one broken nail plenty of times but never three. He then informed me that she would have to STAY and be operated on IMMEDIATELY. Dogs have actual bone that come from the paw to the nail and her bone was exposed which could let bacteria enter her legs. If that happened, we could really have a problem on our hands. So, we left her in good hands and went home to prepare for our flight out the next morning. Our flight was uneventful and we made it to our 1.00 appointment with little stress. The team of doctors (one is an orthodontist, periodontist and the other is the prosthedontist and implant specialist) met with us and after much discussion, decided she was too young for an implant. They also informed us that there was about a 50% loss of bone and tissue at the tooth site. This meant: A) we have to make a fake tooth for her to wear for several more years and she needed surgery to rebuild the bone and gum tissue for the fake tooth to look normal. Additionally, her wisdom teeth needed to come out. This was a good thing because the best tissue to graft with is newly regenerated gum tissue. You could literally see the wheels turning in these doctors heads! If we removed the wisdom teeth, they could harvest the newly formed gum tissue from the wisdom tooth sites and rebuild the gum with that tissue. And, it just so happened that their oral surgeon had an opening THE NEXT MORNING. Otherwise it was a two week wait and we would have to come up during Spring break. So, just like Maisy, Elizabeth went to a doctor's appointment and was sent straight to surgery. Now - we had NOTHING but the clothes on our back! Not only had I not traveled without a camera (should never go anywhere without it), we had not brought anything with us...not even a toothbrush! Note to self: DON'T EVER GET ON AN AIRPLANE WITHOUT A SMALL COSMETIC BAG! However, there was a hotel in walking distance and hey, this was a GOOD, I mean GREAT excuse to go shopping. Delta Airlines was even obliging when I called to tell them we could not take the return flight home and told me they would waive the $50.00 penalty to change our ticket! So we walked to the hotel (oddly it was the same hotel that we stayed in for Ellen's Drama Convention), and had the courtesy car take us to the mall and went SHOPPING! We needed clothing for the next several days! I found a cute white shirt and tan blazer (it was COLD in Atlanta and we had brought no jacket) and just wore the same pants again and Elizabeth got a blue knit skirt that she wore with the same white shirt. Then we went to Walgreens and bought toiletries and these cool over size base ball shirts to sleep in! ($2.99) I have always loved base-ball jerseys!

See below:

After our fun shopping trip - we retired to our hotel and went to bed early - at least, I did...Elizabeth stayed up and finished her TERM PAPER that had to be turned in online! Thank goodness she had been on top of it and had little to do to finish it so it wasn't that big of deal! We still had no idea of what we were going to do the next day....try to fly home in the evening, spend another night and fly out the following day or rent a car and drive home....

it is called the FIOGA method - Figure It Out as you Go Along!

Her surgery was at 9.00 AM so we actually enjoyed "sleeping in". They started promptly at 9.00 and by that time both of us just wanted to go home ~ so I decided to go rent a car while she was in surgery, and just drive home afterward. Everything ran like clockwork...there was an Avis close by and the hotel's courtesy car took me over there and I rented the car with a GPS - a must in Atlanta! Then I hightailed it back to the office just in time to go back to the recovery room. The cool thing about this office is that is in completely "state of the art" and not only is every dentist including the oral surgeon on site, but all the labs and surgery rooms are also in-house....it is the One Stop Shop of Dentistry. They also use a new procedure called PRGF....Plasma Rich in Growth Factors.

In a nutshell - they draw your blood and spin it down to isolate the proteins which are responsible for wound healing and tissue regeneration. They take this (nurse said it is like a clear piece of tissue) and suture into the wound area. I was a bit skeptical but Elizabeth woke up and went to school this morning! I told her to stay home but she said she felt fine and would come home if she
needed to....it is 1.30 and she is still there.

That is 24 hours after having four wisdom teeth surgically removed and driving home for seven hours yesterday! Amazing! I am now a believer! The dentist told us he was at work the next day after having his wisdom teeth removed and I could not believe that! (now I do)

The fun started when I went to get her from recovery....she was one of the happiest patients I have ever seen (I think the office thought so too). She had a bandage that held ice packs around her head, a big bloody mouth and was having the best time, thanking all her nurses, saying hello to anyone that walked by, singing songs and just having a regular party! We wheeled her down to my car and she was waving and chatting with everyone she passed. I can't even show you a pic of her because: A) I didn't bring a camera; and B) even if you have a strong stomach, it is tough to look at and

C) she would not appreciate that!

Anyway, there are many funny stories to tell but I will only relay the funniest!

We got in the car and as I was setting the GPS and getting everything in order for the drive home, she looked in the mirror and said (in this little girl voice) "Goodness Gracious, my mouth is all bloody ~ I look like I have been in a war" She still had her head bandage on so that added to the war veteran effect! She said "Hey, I have a great idea to raise money ~ I could pretend like I was a war veteran and pan-handle for money...I bet everyone would donate to me. " I was just "going along" with her and said sure, that is a good idea. Before I could look up, she had opened the door and had her bloody, bandaged head hanging out the open door and was yelling "Hey" to the security guard. I reached over, and caught her shirt as she was trying to escape to "go earn some money" and pulled her back in and locked the door! I could see the security guard looking at us and trying to decide what he should do about seeing a bloody, bandaged girl yelling for him and trying to escape from my car! He turns and disappears and over Elizabeth's demented laughter I am envisioning sirens, police and SWAT teams coming to surround me. I figured it best not to leave right away so there would not be a "high speed chase" scene through Atlanta - at least not until I had my GPS set with directions on how to get home! After about five minutes and there was nothing going on but Elizabeth babbling about everything under the sun, I decided it was safe to leave. However, I needed to get her some water for the ride and they said to get something in her stomach so I found a gas/convenience story where I could park the car RIGHT outside the window of the checkout counter. I parked the car and said sternly to the bloody, bandaged, cheshire cat grinning, war vet ~ "Elizabeth (as I am saying this she is trying to catch the eye of anybody walking by and grinning with bloody, drool coming out of her mouth while waving like at them like mad man woman. Which she was)...STAY IN THE CAR ~ DO NOT GET OUT!" I locked the car doors, RAN in and grabbed a smoothie and water and look over at her while I am checking out. She is leaning ACROSS the driver's seat and waving and grinning to the person parked right beside her.....they are standing perfectly still with a shocked look on their face trying to decide if someone is about to pop out and say "Your on Candid Camera"! I told the clerk to hurry, that was my crazy daughter out there and no telling what would happen if I didn't get back A.S.A.P. I jumped in the car told her to sit back down and Relax! She start singing Relax - take it easy (by Mica)! I said "I told you not to get out...did you try?" and she told me YES ~ but the doors were broken! Thank goodness I had locked them or she would have been at the corner with a sign asking for money!

Anyway, that was one of the many adventures that can come only from the mind of Elizabeth on drugs! Lets hope it is a one-time occurrence.....

We made it home in seven hours and came home to this! Are you seeing the parralels yet?

They both went to the doctor for a check up; they both had to stay unexpectedly for surgery; they both came home with some sort of contraption/bandage around their head and they are both taking pain medicine and antibiotics!

You have to admit that is strange....

They are not still not quite sure about why Maisy lost her toenails.....but we are waiting on some test

to come back that will shed some light on the problem.

Meanwhile they are both up and at em today - Elizabeth is at school and Maisy is enjoying a beautiful Spring day in the yard.

Words of Wisdom: ALWAYS take a camera with you and ALWAYs take a small overnight bag when you get on a plane - especially if you are going to see a doctor!

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About Me

I am "Mom" to three incredible, wonderful girls (I know, I know ~ I am a bit biased - but hey, aren't all Mamas...that is what we are here for ~ to champion our children!); a wonderful husband who doesn't get near enough credit in my blog; three gorgeous girl dogs; 15 egg producing chickens; one squawking cockatiel, two independent cats, 13 baby producing rabbits ~ yes the saying "breed like rabbits" is true; one cooing dove; seven hay and feed eating horses; two turtles that do nothing; and a partridge in a pear tree (had to say it!). This is a random blog that depicts a bit of what our crazy life is like when you mix them all together! If you have a minute ~ become a follower! If you like my posts ~ leave a comment. Enjoy the ride......